Getting Caught Stealing with my Abusive Ex-Boyfriend!

My stomach growling, skin bruised, mind and soul hungry for food… I sat there in the parking lot trying to mentally prepare myself.

I had stolen in the seventh grade once. Back then I didn’t steal something I really needed but more to be “rebellious”… but I’m not too sure how rebellious stealing a pack of gum was, but hey at the time I felt unstoppable!

This time was different.

My boyfriend had emptied my last $20 out of my account (for the third time), he needed weed. And if I “loved him” then of course I would give him the $20 to support his addiction. Of course, he would “pay me back” although he hasn’t any of the bajillion times he has asked, but maybe this time was different. (It wasn’t). So, there we were in the T****t parking lot. He’s explaining to me,

“Take some clothes, put them in your bag and come out!”

“You better not get caught or else I’m done with you!”

“Just do exactly what I told you!”

“If you love me you will do this!”

I was starving, I hadn’t eaten a real meal since Tuesday morning, it was Friday afternoon. To make matters worse it was the beginning of July in California, so the weather was blazing hot. I had originally told him

“Why don’t we just steal some groceries, so we can eat them? We can even just eat them in the store as we walk around and then leave.”

As usual, he wasn’t having that. He got angry at me and started going on his long narcissistic lectures about how he knows everything, how little I know, how stupid I am, how he is a genius and I need to listen to what he says, how he is the “greatest person to come into my life” and how I should be “trusting everything he says” including his “plan”.

His plan was:

Steal cute clothes

He’ll take the clothes I stole and sell them on Craigslist

We will use the money to buy some groceries

Now although I did agree that it sounded like a pretty good idea, I liked mine a lot better. I just wanted to walk to the produce section snack on some strawberries, grapes, and hell maybe even some carrots, as I walk around the store and then leave. Yet “I’m an immature idiot and don’t know anything” (his words exactly) so I didn’t.

I listened to him instead, big mistake.

As I look back now, I find it funny how although he had the “perfect plan”, although he “knew everything and how to do everything perfectly the first time” (once again, his words). It was me who had to execute his plan, his part of the plan was to stay in the car, with me being the idiot doing the stealing… I guess he is the “smart” one in this case.

So, there I was. I walked in and tried to act as casual as possible. I felt as if thousands of eyes were staring at me, watching my every move. I walked straight to the Junior’s section and grabbed a dress, a romper, and some shorts. I walked around and tried to find a place where nobody could see me, I slowly placed them into my bag.

I was so nervous.

I decided to go to the restroom. I felt that “nervous poop” feeling and it was close to the exit. I walked into the stall, took the clothes out, folded them neatly and tucked them deep into my bag placing my wallet over them. I tried to calm myself down. I headed outside the automatic sliding doors. As soon as I was outside I walked to my car. I felt as if I was speed walking while holding a “I just stole something” sign. I felt as if I looked so obvious that I just did something illegal yet, nobody saw me.

I didn’t get caught.

Now I know what you are thinking, “Isn’t that a good thing you didn’t get caught?”

No! It sucked that I didn’t get caught because now that I had accomplished it the first time my boyfriend didn’t want me to stop. Every time we went somewhere he saw me as a pawn.

“Just steal X Y & Z, for me one more time.”

Yet it wasn’t just “one more time”. Every store we went to he wanted me to take something for him to resale for 100% profit.

Now my first time stealing for him he sold the clothes for $30. I was sort of disappointed because I thought to myself,

“I risked my freedom for 30 bucks?”

I also was a little excited thinking of all the twenty-seven possibilities (California sales tax included), at the 99Cent Only Stores, of groceries we could buy!

Not only did we only get thirty dollars, it gets worse. It’s what the $30 really went to that tore my heart out of my chest… He used $20 of it for weed! Then we used $5 to get me two half pound burritos and a drink from Del Taco. The other 5$ he used to buy blunt wraps.

I was devastated!

I felt useless, defeated. All the hassle, all the anxiety, all the nervousness to steal for nothing! It made me sad to know that this wasn’t going to be the first and last time he wanted me to steal something. To make matters worse I knew that every time he said it would be money for groceries, that also was a lie.

Don’t be like me.

If someone who “cares” about you is trying to force you to do something illegal for them, don’t do it! Think of it this way, if they are wanting something for their own personal gain then why are they having you do it? Being manipulated by someone to do something, especially something illegal, isn’t someone who “cares about you”. Always remember that at the end of the day, if you get caught doing something for them, you are the one going to jail!